On Thursday, April 21, 2016, Tony Aiuto <tony.ai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 1:45 PM, John Willis <chocolatejolli...@gmail.com > <javascript:;>> > wrote: > > > > > > > > That's another thing I remember and miss from those days... your > > average > > > > ISP would provide NNTP and UNIX shell accounts, as well as a few megs > > of > > > > space to put up a personal web site in ~/public_html. > > > > > > I still read Usenet newsgroups via GNUS under Emacs on my shell account > > on > > > Panix, an ISP located in Manhattan, and have a small web site hosted > > there > > > as well: > > > > > > http://www.panix.com/~alderson/index.html > > > > > > Some things are too important to relegate to a web browser. > > > > Actually, I don't get this discussion at all. I had a panix account years > ago.About the same time I ran a FULL suite of servers in my basement, DNS, > STMP, HTTP & mailman. Then I realized that was just because I *could*, > rather than I needed to or because it served any interesting historical > purpose. I switched it all to outsourced services and never looked back. Good for you? I enjoy doing those things, and don't see what would give you a reason to belittle someone who enjoys doing something else. > > The bottom line is that what i really care about is the beauty of old > hardware and the elegance of software that had to run in that limited > environment. The speed/cost/accuracy tradeoff is the essence of software > engineering. If I read information about it with Lynx rather than a modern > browser, I only penalize myself. I reduce my bandwidth for some abstract > notion of "purity". I don't think anyone suggested anything like this... I use a number of highly modern machines every day. > > Look at it this way. Archeologists care about history, but they are smart > enough to realize they don't have to write their papers in charcoal on cave > walls. Do not conflate the subject matter with the medium to talk about it. So retro internet is less valid as a focus of hobbyist enthusiasm than retro computers? I enjoy both, as well as modern computing. I love ancient hardware, and I will use the best tools I have available to > talk about it. Limiting myself to shell accounts and elm as a mail reader > misses the point. We *live* in 2016. We talk about 1970. Using technology > from 1990 is neither historically accurate, nor useful. How is it historically inaccurate for me to use 1990s technology to relive the times when I was first getting into computers to begin with? Again, I enjoy it, so you have no right to be a jerk and judge me for it... > > > > > > > Rich > > > > > > > This gives me a thought: I run a similar (but likely much smaller) ISP in > > my neighborhood. > > ISPs like Panix and my own ChivaNet should come up with some common > > branding > > indicating that we support traditional Internet values and services. Some > > way for enthusiasts > > who really care about "the Internet as it was meant to be" to separate > the > > wheat from the > > chaff, and be smarter about bandwidth shopping. > > > -- *John P. Willis* Coherent Logic Development LLC M: 575.520.9542 O: 575.524.1034 chocolatejolli...@gmail.com http://www.coherent-logic.com/